


(Stay)

by SerenStone



Series: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: BDSM Topics Mentioned, Discussions of mental illness, Do Not Do As the Warlock Do, F/M, Multi, Other, We Stan Ghosts in this House, We Stan Titans in this House, We Stan Warlocks in this House, mentions of self harm, tw: drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 15,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenStone/pseuds/SerenStone
Summary: Mind the tags, please.
Relationships: Female Guardian/Ghost (Destiny)
Series: Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743430
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	1. Check-In

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags, please.

When Silla made it back to Shry’s camp, she was surprised to find Arthil-2 there with them. “Oh, hey! Good to see you again,” she said and without breaking her stride she turned to face Shry. “Shry, what the everloving-” Bee beeped loudly to censor her swearing.

“Okay. That was adorable,” Arthil noted after a beat.

“Which bit?” Shry asked.

“The bit where you were catatonic and they called it Thanatonautics.”

Shry shrugged. “Not entirely wrong, only mostly. I’ve been struggling with… control some lately. I lost control and Isaac deprived me of my light to keep things safe.”

“...and it took you days to come back from that? Because Isaac took your light?”

Isaac spoke up when Shry turned to him. “...No. That was her, not her light.”

Silla held preternaturally still as she stared into the middle distance. Bee tilted in place. “And now?”

“I’m fine at the moment,” Shry shrugged. 

“At the moment. This could happen again?” Silla did not move other than to speak.

“Yes,” Shry said without emotion.

“...Do you know why?” 

“No,” Shry said at the same time as Isaac spoke up.

“We have suspicions.”

Shry turned to him with visible surprise on her face. “We… do?”

“Arthil and I do,” Isaac amended and if anything Shry stared at Isaac more intensely.

Silla turned to watch the three of them, utterly confused. She wondered how or why Shry is letting this Arthil so close to this situation. She did not dare bring it up for fear of breaking what looks like a fragile situation. 

“So?” Shry asked.

Isaac turned to Arthil-2 who shifted where he sat on a log and began tugging at his fingers. “Lots of suppressed emotions and memories, primarily painful ones, that need to be experienced and dealt with for this to pass. Every other time this has happened, your body has given up before you got through the emotions. This past time Isaac took your light and only let Light touch you to heal you. So it took days to end. But you’ve seemed… more present since from what I have understood so we like to think progress was made.”

Silla watched as Shry stared at Arthil; unidentifiable emotions swam across the warlock’s face. Eventually she decided on a question. “Do you have help?”

Isaac was the one who turned to her. “What do you mean?”

“Sounds like this has been going on a while. Have you had help? Will you continue to have help?”

“Katya-7 and Astrophel have helped enormously. Arthil has been an extraordinary help since I explained the situation to him. Our current methodology and understanding is all thanks to his assessments, analysis, and ideas.” 

Arthil made a complicated sound and actually covered his face with his hands. Through their empathic connection, Silla heard Bee coo at how adorable he was.

Silla thought for several beats. “I can’t make promises for my team without talking to them and you clearly want this kept quiet so I won’t even try. But we,” she gestured to Bee. “We’re here. If you need a mission covered while you handle stuff, or whatever, we can do that for sure. And I-”

“Thank you, Silla,” Isaac said, interrupting her. “We currently have a schedule clear of missions but if something comes up I will let you know.”

Silla blinked, surprised. Slowly a faint smile spread on her face. “Cool.” Bee leaned against the pack on Silla’s back. She pulled it off and dropped it on the ground near Shry. “More stuff. Thought you might want to try more intermediate skills now that the novice ones are in the bag.”

Shry watched her with a complicated expression on her face. “Okay.”

“Cool. Do you guys need anything else right now?”

Shry shook her head. “No, thank you for asking.” Isaac’s voice was warm.

“You still good?” she turned to Arthil.

“Yeah,” his face emerged from behind his hands. “I’m good. I’m where I want to be.”

Silla nodded, even as she wondered at his word choice and why Shry looked like she wants to cry. “Okay then. I’m almost always on Earth. Hit me up if you need something. Even if it’s not something I can get; I have,” she paused, wondering if she should finally bring up Calus. “I have some unusual resources.”

For some reason that provoked a grin from Shry. “I’d bet. Thank you.”


	2. Cause

The new gear held Shry’s attention better than Isaac anticipated and she disappeared into the forest so he drifted to the far side of the camp. Arthil was pulling on his knuckles again and seemed unaware of Isaac so he knocked gently into Arthil’s hands. 

“Oh,” the EXO jumped and nearly batted Isaac away before catching himself. “Sorry.”

“Are you distressed?” Isaac asked. 

“I- Am I- Why would I-” Arthil stammered for a while before dropping his face in his hands. “Yes.”

“Will you tell me why?”

“How much of this did I cause?” His voice was muffled by fingers in his mouth.

Isaac’s plates shifted. “Antecedent of this?”

“Shry’s… illness.”

“Did you choose to die?”

“No,” Arthil looked up, brow plates drawn together. “I didn’t realize it wasn’t safe. Foolish, now I think of it but-”

“Did you teach her to believe that her sacrifices were without reward?” Isaac continued. Brutal, harsh, yes. But they had to get this out of the way.

He stilled and his eye-lights blinked off. “Maybe,” he admitted after a long pause. “I could see how she could have gotten there.”

“Did you teach her that her suffering didn’t matter?”

“No,” Arthil slumped. “She already believed that one when I raised her.”

“Did you teach her that her only use was as a weapon?”

Stiffening, Arthil’s eyes snapped open and landed on Isaac with alarm. Again, he considered the question. “We’re useless without the Light,” he sighed. “I said that. She only went after the Light in the Shard of the Traveler because I asked her to; she would have fought on in the City without the Light if I hadn’t.”

“You said we,” Isaac reminded him. 

“But did she hear it that way? I don’t know.”

“We could ask,” Isaac said carefully.

“She was always incautious,” Arthil said slowly. “But it got worse after the Red War. No scenario was too dangerous. I think that answers the question.”

“Perhaps. Her reasons are often fairly complex,” Isaac pointed out. 

Arthil shook his head. “Maybe now.”

Isaac’s plates shifted. Arthil did not sound convinced. He wondered again if Arthil comprehended how long Shry had been without him, how the time had affected her, if he’d known her at all while he was alive. “I have assumed you are no more at fault than the Vanguard.”

Arthil choked. “So entirely?”

“She is responsible for her choices and actions. You are responsible for your own. Not more, not less.”

“But if I taught her-”

“Then you are responsible for teaching her, not for her choice to listen.” 

Something broke in Arthil’s posture then. “She trusted me,” Arthil whispered, hunching in on himself but leaning toward Isaac. “She trusted me the moment I said I was her Ghost and I never trusted her.”

Isaac hung, suspended in that crystalline moment of understanding. For her Ghost not to trust her would have been catastrophic for Shry. “Then yes.” He waited for Arthil’s shocked, haunted gaze to land entirely on him. “You did cause this. Quite possibly most of it.” Arthil’s eyes blew so wide and brilliant that Isaac felt it necessary to recalibrate his sensory input settings. 

Snarling, the EXO rose and stalked from the camp and Isaac contemplated his own choices and those in whom he’d put his trust.


	3. Metamorphosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was previously published as a preview under the title Metamorphosis.

Drowning, Shry knew, meant she was dead. The surface of the water some infinite distance above. The faces of the loved and lost some infinite distance below. The Light still reached her; dead thing that she was, she could feel the Traveler’s grasp even in death. She could make out Isaac’s Light just beyond her reach. The water’s embrace held her in place and she felt no fear.

“You,” a familiar voice brushed velvet across her senses. “Shall drift.” She couldn’t place it, not at first, but a shiver of unease lingered in the base of her spine. No, something was touching her. Shry twisted in the water, searching for the source. “You are alone,” it said, in a tone that was impossibly tender, regretful, a warning come too late. A touch on the back of her hand. She searched, squinting as the water darkened. “There is no Light here,” a kindly reminder that resonated in her bones and she screamed underwater as the sensations coiled round her, impossibly warm, tempting, a welcoming-home. 

Xol.

“You’re dead!” she shrieked, writhing, reaching for enough Light to fight and finding no purchase. “I killed you!”

“You are alone,” Xol agreed, somehow amiable in his obscenity. The chitinous plates of the great worm shifted around her, cradling her in his easy clutch. She could find neither Isaac nor the Traveler, only Darkness and its gentle, good night. “You,” his voice was a caress. “Shall drown in the Deep.” 

Shry managed to get an arm loose enough to hold up a one finger salute. “I know how to swim, bitch.”

“You shall drift,” he said again: tolerant, placid, charmed.

“That all you can say?” she growled, aggravated. All but the alone line she had heard before, the first time she’d met Xol. She really wasn’t loving this whole peculiar and diverting specimen scenario.

 _Do not be revolted_ , a whisper slipped through her mind from no clear source.

“You want respect? Stay out of my head,” she said through gritted teeth. 

“The unsacred union between destroyer and destroyed: death is metamorphosis.” If it wasn’t too much for her fragile calm to consider, she would have said that Xol sounded high. “There are parasites that may benefit the host; teeth sharper than your own, destroyer mine.” The dark water trembled, rippled with a word she only heard as “aiat.” A touch on the back of her raised hand, a ghost of sensation on her finger. She felt sick. What opportunities had she presented Xol with by killing him? 

“Fuck no. I killed you because I wanted you gone. I haven’t changed my mind.”

“You are alone,” it was a reminder, a threat, and a question all at once. The coils stilled.

“Irrelevant. I am not with you and I am not yours.”

“An engine to make your desire hegemon over your conditions. Wield me and use me to test your foes.” Again the water rippled with the word “aiat.”

It was becoming hard to think, hard to focus. “I said no, Xol. I say no.”

The worm stirred at his name and his coils resumed their dance. “You are alone,” he said again, mournful, grieving. “You shall drift.”

“That bother you, big guy? That I’d rather be alone than with you?” Shry had no weapon other than her words. 

The worm hissed, not with displeasure but in thought. “Metamorphosis,” he whispered and she felt it in the base of her skull. Caution, musing, decision. His form shifted incomprehensibly and she found herself directly underneath god-worm’s dreadful eye. “You shall drown in the Deep.” It was dismissive. It was final. It was condemnation. It was a command. “Drown.”

The coils around her vanished and she dropped like a stone from a great height. The farther she fell, the heavier the colorlessness pressed in against her, until finally it pressed into her nose, her ears, her eyes, her mouth and poured. She felt both her stomach and her chest grow heavy and full, her ears burst, the pressure in her throat building. And still she fell. And still it poured.

And still she fell. And still it poured.

And still she fell. And still it poured.

And still it fell. And still it poured.

And still it fell and still it poured.

And still it fell and still it poured.

And still it


	4. Effect

Isaac felt her scream before anything else, then her Light scrambling for his and he tore himself through transmat to her side. Shry wrapped her hands around him and pulled him close, tears streaming down her face without clear cause. He pressed his Light into her even as he scanned her for injuries; she had none. She held him against her forehead. Her panic eased slowly as she clung to him and his Light and he waited until her breathing evened out.

“Will you tell me what happened, please?” he asked gently. 

Haltingly, she described a dream, a vision, in which she had been dead and Xol had met her in the water. Xol had tried to sway Shry to his service in some fashion and hurt her when she refused. Then she had drowned and been assimilated. Isaac seethed even as he worried for her. “He’s not dead,” she breathed. “I killed him and he’s not dead.”

“I’ll call Eris,” Isaac said. “I’ll tell her everything you just told me. Will you tell Ana?”

“I need to go to the Mindlab,” Shry said, swallowing. “I need to see that he’s dead.”

“We can do that.”

“I need Katya,” she added, her voice small. “I can’t go alone again. I can’t take you there alone again.”

Isaac was silent a beat, his fury rising even as his pride in her grew. “I think that might be wise. Can you get to the ship on your own or shall I get you there?”

“I- I want to get the things Silla brought. I’ll get there. Arthil-”

“I’ll handle it. You get things together and I’ll meet you on board.” 

He started to float from her hands and she choked on her breath. “Isaac-” He was back in her hands in an instant and she pressed him against her forehead again. “I thought-” 

He wrapped his Light around her as she shook. “I’m here,” he insisted. “I am going to stay with you while you collect your things. I can do it all remotely.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Anything,” he said, fierce. “Always.”

Shry began to gather Silla’s gifts and Isaac turned his attention to communication. Rather than force Arthil to listen to his voice, Isaac sent a text-based message via their ship-to-ship communications system that read: Shry’s had a vision that must be addressed urgently. We’re going to Titan and then to Mars. More information to come.

To Ana he sent a message that read: Shry’s had a vision regarding Xol; be on guard. We’ll be there soon. More information to come.

While he waited for Eris to pick up, he compiled his notes on the situation and forwarded them to Arthil and Ana. When Eris accepted his call, they were already on their way to Titan. “Isaac?”

“Shry had a vision,” Isaac explained, going into as much detail as he could and explaining what they had gone through to kill Xol in the first place, as well as forwarding his notes. 

Eris was silent for a long moment. “I suppose you did not know who I was at that time.”

“Even if we did, no one knew where you were,” he said apologetically. “I had heard of you but assumed you were dead.”

“I understand. Even Crota could not be slain only by destroying his physical form. Xol will be more difficult to destroy permanently, if he can be found again.”

“What do you mean about Crota?”

“Crota was already physically weakened due to infighting when Fireteam Bantusk defeated him. First he was physically weakened by in-fighting. Second the tether maintaining his soul within the physical realm was destroyed. Third, a fireteam entered his Ascendent Realm to slay him in the very place that was meant to sustain him. Defeating Oryx was a similarly complex process.”

“I don’t know what a soul tether or an Ascendent Realm are,” Isaac admitted slowly. 

“Shry will,” Eris said with full confidence. “I’m confident she’s read enough of the Cryptoglyph if not the World’s Grave. I will pull reports from those missions and send them to you soon. Where are you?”

“Heading to Mars very soon,” Isaac simplified. “Shry wants to see Xol’s corpse.”

“I shall meet you there. It is possible that I will be able to dispel any lingering influence upon her.”

“Thank you, Eris.”


	5. Deserve

_You did cause this._ It rang through his head over and over and he found himself sitting at the edge of the ridge line, looking out at the Shard of the Traveler. _I never trusted her._ He flinched, his own inadequacies rose over him like a moon. 

Isaac had played Shry’s ranting at the Shard for him. How dare you! He only ever loved you. Does his death mean nothing to you? You invoked us all. More will drop away into the gray or further still. You loved him enough he didn’t even have to touch the Shard. I wasn’t enough to protect him; why didn’t I pay the price?

And then, worse. _Why are you mad at me for trusting you to have my back?_

_I shouldn’t have to!_

Arthil buried his face in his hands. He’d never been worthy of her. It was a wonder she had missed him at all, let alone tried to get him back. And Isaac-

 _Never, ever doubt that she loves you._ How Isaac must despise him. Not only had he failed to care for his Guardian, he’d actively worsened her situation. Even with another Ghost that clearly trusted her, treated her better than he had, Shry had chased after Arthil’s memory, his life.

Shry, locked in place, unaware and screaming. He did that. He’d put her in a position to lose control of her own expression so severely that she killed indiscriminately. 

Arthil wished he could weep. Instead he stared at the Shard without moving until an alert sounded on his communication interface. He drew it from his belt automatically, scanning over the message from Isaac. They were leaving. He was going to send more information. Why Isaac was continuing to keep him in the loop Arthil did not know. 

The only vision Shry had had during Arthil’s tenure as her Ghost had been during the Red War and neither of them had really known what to do with it until they made it to the EDZ. Somehow the fact that she still took visions so seriously hurt. Titan for Katya, he hoped. 

He heard the Nullifier lift off and something in him shattered. Just like that. They had left him. Finally, they treated him as he deserved. It was almost an hour before he was able to push himself to his feet and head for the Pallas Galliot Isaac had given him. He would see what the rest of the information was and he would see if he could help. It was the least he could do.


	6. K7: Support

Katya turned from her conversation with Sloane when she sensed Shry’s Light. She watched as Shry, covered in dirt and dressed only in boots, trousers, and an undershirt walked straight to her and didn’t stop. Instead, Shry walked all the way to Katya and dropped her head against Katya’s chestplate. 

“I’ll be back later,” Katya said over her shoulder to Sloane, wrapping her arms around Shry and pulling her away. Once they were far enough away it wasn’t rude, Astrophel transmatted them onto the Temerity. “Shry?” Katya modulated her voice to something quieter. 

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, muffled by Katya’s armor. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, I-”

“It’s not a problem, Shry. You’re not a problem. Just talk to me?”

“I can’t do this alone. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Katya’s arms tightened reflexively but she forced them loose. “I’m here now. What do you need?”

Shry sagged. “Yeah. Can I, uh.”

“Ask.”

“Can I keep hugging you for a minute? I really need to hug someone right now and-”

“Yeah, sure,” Katya said quickly, oddly moved. “I can handle a hug.” Shry’s arms shook as they rose from her sides to loop around Katya’s armor. Katya shot Astrophel a ping and he transmatted her armor to the scrubber. She gently coaxed Shry closer with the armor out of the way. “You want to talk about it?”

“Xol.”

“Big fuck-off worm you killed for Rasputin?”

“I killed him but he’s not dead,” Shry’s voice broke against Katya’s shoulder. 

“What?”

“He showed up in a dream or nightmare or vision or something. I think he wanted me to work for him. I told him no and he left but-”

“But that indicates he’s still kicking.”

“I don’t know what it will take to kill him for real,” Shry shook.

“We’ll figure it out. How are you doing?”

The human woman froze. “I-” Shry released her and turned away, her arms wrapping around herself. “I had another… episode.” Katya watched as Shry’s fingers dug into her shoulders, knuckles going ashy. “Isaac stripped me of my light and held me in place until I went normal again. Witnesses. Silla’s fireteam. Arthil was there when I woke up. Isaac says it was Arthil’s idea to pin me and take my Light. They think I have to… let the rage go all the way through for it to go away. That I have to let it finish and can’t let fighting or my body giving out get in the way of that anymore.” The skin under her fingertips was losing pigmentation.

Katya moved until her side was next to Shry’s. “Sounds like they’re working together.”

“They are.”

“That’s good, then. Can I get you to let go of your shoulders?”

Shry started, her arms coming free. “What?”

“If you had kept that up your nails would have drawn blood.”

Sighing, Shry wilted where she stood and closed her eyes, her hands hanging loose. “Right.”

“Thank you. That was well done.”

“What was?” Shry swayed where she stood.

“You talked about the episodes and the closest you came to hurting yourself was briefly cutting off some circulation.”

“I-” she shook her head and looked lost. “I’m worried I won’t be able to stand up to Xol again.”

Katya stilled. “You never said what it was like.”

“I shouldn’t have succeeded. I still don’t know why I did. The first time I saw Xol he knocked me down with nothing but the sheer force of his telepathic presence. But he didn’t do that again when we fought outside the Mindlab.”

“Okay. That’s really good to know but why don’t we wait to talk about that after you’ve had some rest?”

Shry blinked a few times. “I don’t know if I can sleep again.”

“Have you tried sleeping while Isaac emanates Light?” Astrophel asked.

“I- no. I haven’t.”

“We can direct your ship while he focuses on you and you get some sleep, yeah?” he suggested.

“That sounds good. I was supposed to bring you a datapad with everything we have on this mess but I forgot it.”

“I’ll get it from Isaac; it’s not a problem.” Astrophel insisted. “Go get some rest.” When Shry was gone, he turned to Katya. “I’ve already told Sloane we’re leaving now.”

“Good.” Katya sat down at the flight console. 

Astrophel appeared at her shoulder. “Touch her more often. Casually, I mean. She seems to need it but doesn’t want to presume.”

“I can do that,” she agreed, glad to have something actionable.

“I think maybe…” he trailed off. “If we can get this done, I mean.”

“I hope so,” she sighed. “I really hope so.”


	7. Return

Arthil had never expected returning to Mars to feel so much like a relief. He stepped down out of his ship and onto the Mars soil and felt something in him settle. 

“Hey you,” Ana appeared from nowhere. 

“Hey,” he wheeled around to face her. “How are you?”

“I’m fine but you blew out of here in such a rush and you come back only when-” she cut herself off. “Are you okay?” her voice was softer. “We’ve been worried.”

“I’m alright,” he said as reassuringly as he knew how. “Really. I just. Isaac asked for my help and I, I wanted to help. I didn’t think about worrying you; I’m sorry.”

Ana’s expression cleared though her gaze lingered on him curiously. “Helping Isaac? In person?”

“It’s a long story, and it’s not really mine,” he admitted.

“Got it,” she nodded. “Know anything about this vision?”

“Only just got a packet with more information a few minutes ago,” he shook his head. “I haven’t started reading yet.”

“Come with me then. You’re going to have questions and some of them I’ll be able to answer.”

Arthil blinked even as he followed her into the Futurescape. “That sounds ominous.”

“As a Hive god,” Ana agreed, nodding as she headed for her terminal. “Go ahead.”

Concerned, Arthil began to read through the files Isaac had sent to him. He was less than halfway through the first paragraph of the contents of the vision before his head came up. “Why is Shry having visions of a Hive god talking to her?” Now he understood why they had left Earth so swiftly.

“Because it happened,” Ana said simply. “Here. At least get through the background.”

Arthil sped through the vision and into Isaac’s mission reports of Shry facing off against a Hive god, alone with only Rasputin for back up when there were two other Guardians a few miles away and he found himself rising. Ana watched him in silence, somber. “Why,” he managed, his voice different even to his own ears. “Were they alone?”

Ana’s eyes tightened. “Rasputin had been online for such a short time, if the Valkyrie were to be available at all I needed to be here, helping reroute power systems.”

“And the Commander?” 

“I don’t know,” Ana admitted slowly. “I was very focused on my work; I don’t know what reasons he might have had. I didn’t ask.”

Arthil sat slowly, mechanically. He stared at the datapad in his hands. “But she did it.”

“Yeah,” Ana’s voice was a bit breathy. “She did.”

 _She can kill a Hive god in single combat and I never trusted her to take care of herself._ “I need everything you and Rasputin have on Xol and this… Nokris. I’ll cross reference it with everything in Vanguard archives, my own research, and see if there are any extra layers to the encryptions.”

“Done,” Ana said, immediately waving at Jinju. “So, when Isaac said that Shry was a cryptarch he meant that she was with you?”

Arthil’s looked up a bit too fast. “Was? She is a cryptarch. She put four years into that training.”

“But Isaac didn’t,” she pointed out. “A Guardian-Ghost cryptarch pair split in half…”

“He doesn’t know how,” Arthil said slowly. “She’s been doing it manually.”

“I think so,” Ana agreed. “Sometimes she has piles and piles of equations she runs while she’s here.”

Arthil’s jaw worked. “Okay. I’ll work on that too. In the meantime, I think they went to get Katya.”

Ana blinked then shrugged. “Well, more hands certainly wouldn’t hurt. But we don’t know that anything is going to happen now. None of our readings indicate anything is happening with Xol’s corpse. No Hive activity or anything.”

“Isaac said they were going to Titan before coming here.”

“Sounds fun,” Ana decided, turning back to her consoles. “You need anything else?”

“I may borrow Jinju to check my computations a time or two,” he nodded to the Ghost. 

“Acknowledged,” Jinju noted.

Arthil rose and waved to them as he walked to his room. He’d get the cross reference going and then start putting together everything he’d learned when they’d studied cryptarchy. He couldn’t think of a single reason why Isaac shouldn’t get the benefits of his time there. 

He sat at his terminal and began hooking himself into his interface system as he wanted to work as fast as possible. He scanned over the files Jinju had flagged for him and paused when he saw files for Hive records he’d never heard of before. Adding questions about the Hive to his growing list of questions for Astrophel, Arthil dove in and got to work.

Hours later he received a notification from Jinju that they would arrive soon and he leaned back from the terminal frowning. Decryptions of the World’s Grave and the Cryptoglyph were still under peer review but from what he could understand actually killing a Hive god was something that would take a number of very difficult steps. The delay between the death of the physical form and the next step may very well resolve to be prohibitive in the process of seeking Xol’s full death. He could easily have squirreled himself away somewhere in another realm of existence and settled in to gain power. Shry would be horrified.   
Arthil published all of his notes thus far to the proper permissions in the local servers and sent Jinju an acknowledgement. He didn’t want to admit it, but Rasputin’s processing power was an incredible boon when dealing with this much data in a short period of time. 

Nearly all of the notes and records he could find on Xol and Nokris were written either by Shry or by Isaac and were the result of their time working to defeat the two. Apparently after defeating Nokris, they had put some effort into collecting his records and compiling them. Their notes and records were unusually detailed and exact and he wondered what it had been like to run those encryptions herself. He wondered what it had been like for Isaac to watch.

He stood, carefully disengaging his direct interface system. Time to find out just how much Isaac hated him.


	8. Old Friends

Shry woke slowly; aware first of warmth and a gentle silence and then of comfort and a pervading sense of safety. It was the safety that caught her attention and opened her eyes. She lay on the cot of the Nullifier, and everything seemed in place. But she never felt this safe. Not since… She sat up carefully and looked around to find Isaac hovering next to the head of the cot watching her as he projected a pool of Light around her. 

Astrophel’s suggestion came back to her and she smiled faintly. “Success,” she said, holding out her hands for him. 

“No nightmares or visions?” He pressed against her palms.

“Not even the minor nightmares,” she assured him. “Thank you. I haven’t felt like this in years.”

“I am so glad to help,” he admitted. “I have been somewhat at a loss.”

“I’m still here because of you, Isaac. You know that, don’t you? You’re the one who asked me to find more friends. I have all this help because of you.”

“As you say,” he said eventually. “We’re not quite an hour out. Would you like to shower?”

“Yeah,” she pushed off the cot. “Won’t take long.” She did feel better when she’d washed off all the dirt. She dressed and stepped out of the lavatory to begin pulling on her armor. “Anything new?”

“After a fashion,” he agreed. “Eris is coming to Mars to ensure there is no lingering influence in your mind.” Shry nodded. “And Arthil and I had something resembling a confrontation before we left Earth.”

Shry looked up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“After you and Silla had both left he asked how much of your current illness he caused.”

“He didn’t,” she dismissed the question entirely and returned to her armor. She only turned back to him when she finished and realized that he had not agreed. “Isaac?”

“I asked questions to determine the answer to his question,” Isaac said slowly. “Based on his answers, I believe he did.” She struggled to breathe. “I said as much and he walked away. It was shortly after that that you had the vision.”

“And he’s on Mars now.” Undead Xol? Not complicated enough apparently. Let’s add an emotional Arthil to the mix. 

“Yes.”

“So this may blow up spectacularly,” she said quietly.

“How so?”

“Arthil is not quiet when he’s upset,” she said without emotion. 

The comms board flashed and Isaac glanced at it. “That may be true,” he said slowly. “But he’s been analyzing Vanguard archives for possible references to Xol.”

“He knows about Xol?”

“He does now,” Isaac said gently.

“Right,” she breathed. “Right.”

“Is that a problem?”

She shook herself. “I guess not. I haven’t told him… how yet.”

“Ah. Neither have I.”

“And Eris is coming. Fuck, I haven’t told Eris.”

“I doubt Eris will be upset. Are you ready to land?”

“Okay,” she strapped into the pilot’s chair for landing. 

Shortly Shry was in the Futurescape with Ana and Katya, looking over Ana’s scans of Xol’s corpse. “There’s been no change that we can detect,” Ana said quickly, gesturing to one of her screens. 

“Shry, Eris said that you would know what she meant when she used the terms soul tether and ascendent realm?” Isaac added.

Shry stilled, eyes losing focus. “Shit,” she breathed. “Of course.”

“What does all of that mean?” Katya asked.

“It means,” Eris’ voice came from the stairs. “That it may be too late to eradicate Xol at this time.”

“Eris!” Ana bounded to the former hunter and wrapped her in a hug. Shry was thrilled to see Eris return the hug. 

“Hello Ana. Jinju.” The Ghost twirled and chirped happily. “Let me see you, Shry.” Shry moved to Eris’ side immediately and submitted to a very strange feeling series of incantations and gestures. “Some residual energies, but they would have dissipated in time on their own, I suspect,” Eris sighed. “I do not sense any traps or the like.”

“Well, that’s good,” Ana said cheerfully, though Isaac caught the flash of horror followed by relief. “Tell us what we did wrong with Xol.”

Eris nodded and followed them back to Ana’s terminals, nodding to Katya as she went. She paused before speaking then turned to look at a hallway. Shry followed her gaze to find Arthil hovering in the doorway. “Ah, Eris, that’s Arthil.” 

The EXO stepped forward hesitantly, waving. “Um. Hi?”

“I did not realize you had moved forward with experimentation,” Eris said, watching as Arthil approached. “It is good to meet you,” she said to Arthil. “You retain some Light, still.”

“I, uh, you too.” Arthil glanced rapidly between Eris and Shry. 

Unsure how unhappy Arthil was with her, Shry beckoned him forward. “He’s been running cross references for us.”

“There’s nothing about Nokris or his work in the World’s Grave,” he noted.

“Oryx disowned him as a heretic,” Eris explained. “Necromancy goes against the sword logic.”

“Hard to be a heretic when your god supports it,” Katya drawled.

“Oryx was respected as a god himself,” Eris pointed out. “Certainly within his own family. Nokris was stricken from the record by his command. Xol left with him.”

“So when Shry and Rasputin killed Nokris, they didn’t fulfill some sort of Hive prophecy, did they?” Astrophel asked.

“Not that I am aware of,” Eris shook her head. “Xol, however, Nokris’ death would have strengthened him in the short term.”

“So we did the whole thing backwards,” Ana said, a sardonic twist on her lips.

“Successfully,” Eris mused. “But Ascendent Hive cannot be so easily destroyed, and one must assume that their gods would be much the same. Crota was defeated three times. Oryx only once, but the fireteam was able to entire his throne world directly due to… unusual circumstances.”

“And we only dealt with Xol here,” Ana sighed, glancing out the window. 

“I have been unable to locate Xol in the deeper realms, thus far.”

“So he’s loose,” Shry concluded, her voice hard.

“Yes, though he will have been changed in death,” Eris agreed.

“Yeah, he wouldn’t shut up about metamorphosis,” Shry’s eyes closed and it was only a pulse of Light from Isaac that kept her in the present.

“Of course,” Eris murmured. “If I may see where he was slain, I may be better able to track his path.”

“We’re heading out there tomorrow,” Katya said, before Shry could respond. “You’re welcome to join us.”

“I will,” Eris nodded. “In the meantime I will-”

“Catch up with an old friend!” Ana cheered and swept her out of the room. Shry only just caught the fond exasperation on Eris’ face before they were gone.

“That’s weird. Good, but weird,” Katya said.


	9. Sanity Check

Arthil choked on a laugh and turned it into a cough even as Shry grinned and shook her head. Katya was pleased. Astrophel rolled his eye at her and darted to Arthil’s side. “You said you had more questions about current events?”

“Yeah,” the EXO nodded. “Mind if we go back to my room? I want to keep the cross reference running, just in case.” The two headed out of the room and Shry slumped against the wall as soon as they were gone.

“That bad?” Katya asked quietly.

“Stressful,” Shry said quietly. “So many things we haven’t said yet.”

“In addition to the things that I have said,” Isaac noted. He sounded tired. 

Katya tilted her head and considered the Ghost. “Not like you to start shit and not finish it.”

Shry made a strangled noise even as Isaac nodded. “There simply hasn’t been time given the vision.”

“Gotcha. Timing’s rough. Feeling any better, Shry?”

It took Shry a moment to understand the question. “Yes, much. I’ll have to thank Astrophel for the idea.”

“Indeed,” Isaac added. “Ah. Jinju has alerted me that Ana is telling Eris what happened with Arthil.”

“Give her my thanks, please,” Shry said. 

“Lots of crossed wires,” Katya said. “Any way I can help?”

“Sanity checks,” Shry said immediately, grinning faintly. “I have no idea what those are, personally but they sound helpful.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Katya said, moving to lean against the wall next to Shry so their armored shoulders would touch. “I went through the mission reports on the fight with Xol. Do you still have any video files?”

“I do,” Isaac admitted.

“I doubt you’ve missed anything but I’d appreciate being able to go through it myself. Look for patterns or weaknesses.”

“I’ll send them to Astrophel,” he agreed. “I’d be glad for another perspective in the analysis.”

“You need anything in particular before you see him again?”

“No idea,” Shry sighed. “But I’m really glad not to go alone.”

“I’m glad you’re not going alone. Thank you for asking.”

“Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime,” she agreed easily. “Wanna spar?”

“F- Please.”


	10. Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together*
> 
> Here we go.

Shry turned the datapad in her hands once more before she knocked on the door. “Come in,” Arthil’s voice came through the architecture and she opened the door and stepped inside. He was seated before a terminal with a series of cables connecting the terminal and the frame of his head. He looked up, blinking. “Hey, Shry. Give me just a minute.” It took a bit but eventually he began disconnecting the wires from his head. “What’s up?”

“That looks impressive,” she noted, half to stall.

“Trying to figure out how to achieve Ghost-level interface with an EXO chassis,” he shrugged, freeing himself from the last of the cables. 

“Have you done any research into the style of signal transmitters and receivers Rasputin uses in his warsats?”

Arthil blinked at her. “No,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of it. I’ll ask Jinju.” Shry smiled. “What have you got there?”

“Uh,” she sighed. “This is… a compilation of all the research and experiments we ran trying to get you back. I wanted more time to… tell you all of this, but. If we’re about to go off chasing Xol, we won’t have time and this stuff will almost definitely come up.”

“Why would it come up while chasing Xol?”

“Because we used a lot of Nokris’ texts.”

Arthil’s gaze sharpened. “You used necromancy to bring me back.”

“I used necromancy to try,” she said, frustrated. “Nothing we did actually worked. I still don’t know how or why you’re in an EXO body.”

He stared at her for a long moment before holding out his hand. “Let me see.” 

She passed him the datapad. “I’ll be in the courtyard if you have questions.” He nodded, already engrossed and she left the Futurescape to stand outside, staring up at the sky. Isaac appeared at her shoulder and her helmet formed over her head, sealing her in from the cold. With a sigh, she settled in to meditate until Arthil stalked out. 

The EXO stomped over to them as Shry stood and he threw the datapad at her. She caught it with her Light and drew it to her. “You did all of this?” he shouted.

“Yes,” her voice was even.

“You used magic given to a child of Oryx by a Hive god. You not only risked infection of my core, but also yourself and Isaac.”

“No,” Isaac countered. “That is not a risk we took. The precautions listed are very thorough.”

“Did you use them all?” Arthil snapped.

“Yes,” Shry answered, as his doubt was directed at her.

Arthil pushed a harsh breath he didn’t need out of his frame. “This?” he waved at the datapad in her hands. “That’s idiocy. Lunacy. What were you even-”

“Enough,” Isaac said with enough force that Shry’s head swiveled to him without her permission. “That was not idiocy. That was the first time Shry was willing to admit how much your loss hurt her. That was the first time she tried to repair her own emotional state. That was the first time she trusted me to help her when she thought I wouldn’t. It was a deliberate and calculated risk with careful analysis behind it. Furthermore, calling it lunacy devalues yourself and I will not hear it.”  
Shry’s knees nearly buckled from the utter shock of the gratitude that thundered over her with the force of a tidal wave. She felt known, seen. More than ever before here she found proof of Isaac’s mastery of his role as her Ghost. Furthermore, he was still offering compassion to Arthil even after his earlier conclusions. 

“ _You_ won’t hear it,” Arthil repeated slowly and Shry’s heart sank as quickly as it had flown. “That’s quite a thing to say after saying it’s my fault.”

“There is a large difference between cause and fault, let alone blame,” Isaac countered. “I answered the question you asked to the best of my understanding. I did not lay blame or attribute fault.”

“I caused-”

“Thought patterns.”

Arthil scowled at Isaac and Shry had to work to restrain her flinch. She’d always been able to hear the scowl in his voice but seeing it hurt more, somehow. “You’re splitting hairs.”

“Do you want me to blame you?” Isaac’s voice took on a dangerous edge and Shry’s soul froze within her. “Do you, Arthil?”

“Someone should!” the EXO shouted. 

“And should that override my own desires?” Isaac asked quietly. The hush after his question felt like it could burst in all directions. 

“Your- You-” Arthil stammered, furious and grieving and shocked all at once. Before she could second guess herself, Shry moved to him and wrapped him in her arms like she’d always wanted to and he sagged against her, gasping and shaking such that she thought he’d be crying were he a biological being. 

“I know you don’t trust me to make good choices,” she said haltingly. “But I want you here and in my life. I don’t care if you’re a Ghost or not. I don’t care what shape you are. Not if you’re here.”

Slowly, Arthil’s arms rose from his sides to clutch at her shoulders. “I never ever wanted to hurt you,” he said.

“I know, honey. I always knew that. People hurt each other and statistically that’s more likely to happen to the people you spend the most time with. It’s just part of how these things work. No one’s perfect.”

“He is,” Arthil countered and Shry couldn’t help the surprised laugh that bubbled out of her.

“Hardly,” she said. “He behaves well for company but he’s a damned menace when he puts his mind to it.”

“Perfect for you,” Arthil corrected and Shry sighed.

“So were you, sweetheart. We just didn’t know how much to value that.” Arthil leaned his head against her shoulder and shook and she held on to him as tightly as she dared. 

“I miss you so much,” he admitted, near-silent. “The constant reassurance of your Light accepting and amplifying mine, the ready storm. I can’t feel you anymore. It’s worse than losing the Traveler again.”

Shry choked on air. She hadn’t even thought about him losing the Traveler again and to say that anything was worse- “Oh, Arthil. Arthil, I’m so sorry.” They stood in the swirling ice-dust of Mars, the embrace the only thing holding either of them upright, and they grieved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I break my heart with this sort of thing. Don't regret it though.


	11. Bone

Isaac and Astrophel transmatted the group out to the very same platform from which Shry had fought Xol and Isaac hung back to watch. Arthil had shown up at the meeting point this morning and quietly asked to come with and Shry had agreed without hesitation. The Lightbearers dropped off the edge of the platform to survey the corpse from end to end; the worm’s weight had dragged the head from the platform some months ago. Arthil paced to the edge where they’d jumped down and watched, his eyes tracking the group. Isaac went to his side and waited. 

“How bad was it?” Arthil asked quietly.

“The fight?”

“After.”

“Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. She was very focused on ensuring that Zavala did not harm Rasputin or try to punish Ana for disappearing. It was after the first confrontation with Xol that I was truly worried.”

“Tell me?”

“Xol overwhelmed her without a fight. He simply exuded his own telepathic strength and used it to override her mental processes. It took some time to fade, even after we were out.”

Arthil’s jaw worked. “That’s why she’s still afraid?”

“I don’t know. I was unaware she still feared him until the vision. I have yet to ask. Other things seemed to be a higher priority.”

“Even without the Light, she never expressed fear,” the EXO said. “I don’t know what to do with myself when she does express fear.”

Isaac did not say that’s why Arthil never saw her fear. “She remains uncomfortable sharing it.” He saw that Arthil was now examining the corpse. “Would you like me to transmat you down?”

Arthil glanced up, surprise on his face plates. “Uh. Yes, please.” Isaac took them both down and they rejoined the group to hear Eris musing quietly about uses for Xol’s body. 

“Found some weapons the Hive made from some of his plates,” Shry said. “Sword, knives. I’ve got a few in storage.”

“I found one of the knives when I was tracking you,” Katya added. “Had Ana scan it and then destroyed it.”

“Two types of people,” Arthil muttered, gingerly picking up a small piece of bone to examine it.

“Those weapons may be very helpful in attempting to locate him. Will of thousands. Tracking him from as many directions and angles as possible may be the only chance I have of finding him.”

“Whatever you need,” Shry nodded. 

“Only one. A knife, if I may,” Eris decided. Isaac transmatted the requested weapon into Shry’s hand. “Thank you,” Eris said as she accepted the blade.

“What’s the DPH?” Arthil asked, gesturing at the plating.

“Unknown,” Astrophel said. “My scanners only go up to 50k.”

“Upward of 80 from Jinju’s experiments,” Isaac added.

“And it’s safe to use?”

“Is anything?” Eris countered without looking up.

“For Ghost shells,” Arthil explained, not seeming to notice Shry’s head jerk toward him.

Eris looked up. “It could be done safely, yes.”

“Shaping it would be difficult,” Isaac noted. Arthil nodded without responding, turning the piece in his hand. 

“I must return to Earth’s moon to pursue this search most efficiently,” Eris announced. “I have tools there that I need.” They transmatted back to the Futurescape and Eris took the time to say goodbye to Ana. Before she left, Eris stopped at Arthil’s side. “I suggest you take a new name to create plausible deniability for the Hidden before they come looking for her,” she told him and Isaac stilled. 

“Thanks for the heads up,” Arthil said. “I’ll think of something.”

“Don’t dally,” she said, already walking into her ship.

“Lovely,” Arthil muttered.

“I didn’t even consider-” Isaac half-growled, irritated with himself.

“Ardath-4,” the EXO decided. 

Relief filtered through Isaac like a cool breeze. “Good to meet you, Ardath-4,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Ardath smiled brightly. “Hey, you uh, want to learn to be a cryptarch?”

“I would,” Isaac admitted, wondering at his own feelings. “Please.”

“Cool, you’ll want to read through this then,” Ardath held up a data card that Isaac happily scanned. “We can get started any time.”

The next few days passed in a blur of mathematics, encryptions, and theorems as they waited for word from Eris. Shry didn’t ask what they were up to, just smiled indulgently every time they ran off. Ardath taught Isaac cryptarchy, they worked on Ardath’s interface system, and on the shell improvements.

Finally Isaac received word from Eris. She could not find him. She suspected he had gone so deep into the other realms that he would not emerge for some time. The hunt was off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two! *wails*


	12. Ghosts

“Isaac this is,” Shry’s voice faded into silence as she read through the schematics.

“Originally based on Ardath’s research,” he pointed out gently. Isaac himself had spent several weeks adapting the theories to himself and then two more bouncing ideas back and forth with Failsafe and Rasputin, but the original thought had been Ardath’s. He felt more than heard her breath freeze in her lungs. 

“Oh,” she managed, her voice an octave higher.

“Jinju has agreed to let me machine the pieces here. If all goes to plan I will forward the relevant data to other Ghosts of our acquaintance.”

“How can I help?”

“Opposable thumbs, primarily,” his voice was wry.

“I have those,” she said cheerfully. 

“I am aware,” he said, letting a stray thought affect the blood flow within her thumbs..

“I will not be productive if you keep that up.”

“I am aware,” he said again. He could feel her gaze linger on his shell as he began collecting materials. It was rare that he teased her but he was both pleased and relieved. 

They spent several hours in one of the active machining labs and the control room. Jinju and Katya stepped in from time to time to offer what assistance they could. Isaac had chosen to apply the modifications to the shell they had decoded from the engram they had used as a focus during the ritual. He had grown accustomed to the shape of it and the interfaces were particularly useful. The modifications would increase shell hardness and core cushioning, as well as affecting upgrades to sensor arrays and general movement economy.

When the first of the plates was complete Shry set it up across the courtyard of the Futurescape and put a sniper round through it from a hundred yards. As the simulations had predicted, the bullet glanced off the densest portion of the plate, instead going through the side. Isaac scanned the plate several times and made minute adjustments to his schematics. “Again.”

Shry insisted on a full gamut of tests and Isaac agreed easily as he had already been planning on doing so. One of the tests they ran was crushing the plate between two enormous cogs. The plate bent and eventually crumpled but it lasted far longer than typical Ghost plating. Isaac saw Shry sway where she stood. He scanned her even as he darted to her side. “Shry?”

“I can’t- I-” Her eyes fixed on the mangled plate, unseeing. “I-” Isaac’s mind raced to catch up. Her knees went out from under her. 

Isaac transmatted them away, to an unused room in the Futurescape. “Arthil?” he asked as gently as he could. Shry folded in on herself, sobbing. Isaac sent off a swift request to the EXO even as he gently pressed his own Light against Shry’s edges.

Ardath appeared in the doorway, barely hesitating before moving to wrap his arms around Shry and for the first time Isaac felt the lack of a body. “What happened?” Ardath asked, turning to Isaac.

“Testing shell plating based on your suggestions,” Isaac said quietly. “I crushed one to compare to standard and she- I believe it reminded her of what she found of you.”

The EXO blinked up at Isaac several times before settling his frame more fully next to Shry. He began recounting some story from before the Red War. Isaac quickly reviewed the rest of the tests he needed to complete and submitted them to Astrophel, asking if perhaps Katya would be willing to assist him in performing the tests. An affirmative was quick to follow and Isaac returned his focus to his Guardian. 

Shry had uncoiled enough to hold on to Ardath’s arm, her entire focus on the sound of his voice. Isaac thought he sensed her Light reaching, grasping and he realized she was, perhaps subconsciously, still searching for Arthil’s Light. She might never truly believe Ardath was with her, he thought sadly. Unfurling his own Light, he slipped it into her grasp and was gratified when she latched on and held, her physical posture loosening somewhat.

 _You are her Ghost_ , Katya’s words returned to him and Isaac wondered if perhaps Shry had been looking for him from the beginning.

Ardath-4 was a ghost after all, Isaac mused as he sank more of his Light into Shry. An apparition of the dead, different from the source, but perhaps with a future as something more. Isaac could only hope.


	13. Hold Me, New York - Reprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Title is a reference to a piece by the same name in the Destiny 2 prompts series.

The first time it happened, he nearly didn’t notice caught up as he was in his interface project. In the end, Ardath only noticed because Shry was talking with her hands more than usual. A faint bruise ringing her wrist, mostly covered by her sleeve. He managed to forget about it.

The next time it happened Katya was moving past the spot where Shry was sitting and bumped into her leg. “Oof,” Shry said, and laughed, rubbing at her thigh. 

“Sorry,” Katya looked sheepish. “Can’t help these knees.”

“Oh, no. I just already have a bruise there,” Shry shook her head, smiling. “It’s fine.”

The next time it happened he merely passed Shry in the hallway and her collar was askew as she rolled her shoulder. A fine line of darkness encircled her throat and he almost didn’t hear her say hello as she moved on. 

He turned around and immediately went back to his room and stared at the wall as the door shut behind him. She had promised him. The bruises had never been visible again after that. He had died, he reminded himself, sternly. Why would she keep a promise to him if he’d been dead? 

It wasn’t until he walked in on Shry with eyes like a trip, rumpled hair, and perfectly straight and seamless bruises in circles on her wrists, forearms, throat that it occurred to him to wonder who was giving her the bruises or who could form them so perfectly. He stared at them both and his fragile hold on his fear simply snapped.

“Really. You’re back to this? Well, it’s not like you ever stopped, did you.” It wasn’t a question. “Letting people hurt you for sex. You still think pain is a luxury, don’t you? You haven’t changed at all. How did you even convince- Dying was never enough for you. You had to force suffering on yourself. Couldn’t stop hating yourself for one fucking second to see what you were doing. Selling your body for-”

“Shry’s sexual choices are absolutely none of your business, Ardath-4. In the future, wait for permission to enter.” Isaac’s voice was a brick wall to the face.

“That won’t be a problem,” he spat, he turned and then looked over his shoulder at Isaac. “I thought better of you.” Ardath pulled the door shut and walked away.


	14. Hope Deferred

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Shry said over and over as Isaac seethed. 

“It is not. Please stop telling me it is when it is not.” Her mouth snapped shut. “He all but called you a whore, Shry.” She shrugged, not looking at him, and Isaac had never craved the ability to pick up a weapon more. 

“Maybe I was,” she said and he heard the effort it took for her to say was rather than am. 

Without another word he transmatted a jacket onto her and gently pushed at her shoulder until she stood. He transmatted them to Katya’s gangplank and asked for permission to enter. It was granted immediately and he ushered Shry up and into the ship.

Somehow Katya recognized the crisis and got an arm around Shry and gently manhandled her onto the cushioned bench and Astrophel appeared with extra blankets. Shortly Katya had Shry curled up against her and Shry was still, her focus lost somewhere in the distance.

“What happened?” Astrophel asked, audibly distressed.

“Ardath,” Isaac was careful to keep his own emotions from his voice.

“What now?” Astrophel sighed, rolling his eye.

“I don’t believe I have the entire story,” Isaac said slowly. “But it seems that he profoundly disapproves of her sexual preferences.”

There was a long silence before Astrophel began to splutter something incoherent and Katya leveled her gaze on Isaac with more awareness than he was fully prepared for. “So he nailed you to the wall too, then.”

“Metaphorically,” Astrophel was swift to add, knowing Isaac would attempt to deflect their attention away from himself.

“He tried to,” Isaac sighed. “I had hoped to count him a- A friend. I am no longer certain it is wise to entertain that hope.”

Astrophel and Katya shared a glance. “That bad?” the Ghost asked cautiously.

“Isaac,” Katya’s voice was surprisingly gentle. He realized he’d taken too long to answer. That was an answer in and of itself, he knew. Decided, he transmitted a copy of his memory of Ardath’s rant to Astrophel. He knew without context it would be confusing, but the words themselves were enough, he thought.

Astrophel recoiled several inches in the air before going entirely still. It was only when Katya carefully said his name that he moved again. “That little-” his voice was brittle. “How could he- I’m going to-” he jerked in the air again. “He’s left.”

“What?” Isaac’s few remaining hopes dropped.

“Got on his ship and flew off planet. Jinju says he told Ana he’s off and left. Coward. When I get a hold of him-”

“What did he do?” Katya had the patience of the Traveler.

“Called her something he shouldn’t. Something she isn’t; not that that matters,” Astrophel growled, flying lines around the room.

“And calling her a name is enough to give up on him as a friend?” Katya asked, turning to Isaac.

He knew Katya was pushing to test their reasoning, to get them to explain. Still he wanted to rage at her. “This is not the first time his carelessness has harmed her,” Isaac said, ruthless. “He has been her Ghost. He should know what that means. If he valued my overtures of friendship, he would behave differently. If he had valued her as his Guardian? She has no memory of her mortality. She learned to despise herself somewhere.”

“What do you mean?” Astrophel asked, spinning to face him, upset.

Katya settled back into the cushions, her gaze unwavering but something in her expression pained. “Arthil was… He wanted to be good and he had a very limited idea of what good could be,” she said slowly. “Short sighted. And anything in Shry that didn’t look like his idea of good was… poorly treated. I thought they would sort it out.”

“You- You never said,” Astrophel’s voice was quiet, but near a wail.

“Wasn’t my business, I thought,” she said, sad. “And by the time I heard about trying to bring him back the experiment had failed so… I didn’t think it would matter.”

“He was always like this,” Isaac said slowly, tasting his despair.

“I- He-” Astrophel struggled to find something to say in defense of his friend. 

“He admitted to the idea that he might have been the cause of some of her current mental disorder and he still-” Isaac’s voice failed him and Astrophel sank in the air. “Hoping Ardath might be a friend is a… luxury I cannot afford now,” he decided, ignoring his own desire to do the opposite. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Katya agreed.


	15. Shadow

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand,” Shry said, frowning in her exhaustion. Astrophel and Isaac had both received a request from Bee to meet so that Silla could tell them something and now they were all outside the Farm. The Hunter had large bags under her eyes, her mohawk was french braided down her skull, and she was wringing her hands. It had barely been two weeks since she’d seen Silla and it was like looking at a different person. Katya stood next to Shry, her arms crossed over her chest. Astrophel hovered between them. “You intercepted a message meant for me and answered it in my place and that was almost a year ago and you’re just now telling me?” 

“Yes ma’am,” Silla nodded, her expression visibly upset. “At first it was just because the situation was so _weird_ it seemed really suspicious and I wanted to be sure it was safe before I took it to you and then… by the time I understood what was going on it- It didn’t seem important anymore. But that wasn’t my call to make; I realize now. And in waiting so long I denied you some of the potential benefits.”

Emperor Calus, the leader Ghaul had left behind. “Do you have any idea how-” Shry stopped herself. The last thing she wanted to do was scream at the poor kid. “The Cabal are-”

Silla nodded miserably. “It was really dangerous and really stupid and I took five other Guardians with me and put them in the same danger. The fact that it turned out well doesn’t make it okay.” The change to her mohawk, one of the things that the girl patterned after her father, kept drawing Shry’s gaze.

“What’s wrong?” Shry asked eventually.

“What-” Silla croaked a laugh. “You have to ask?”

“There’s more bothering you than just this.”

The young Hunter wouldn’t meet Shry’s gaze. “I don’t want to-”

“Silla.” All Astrophel said was her name.

She wilted before them until she was sitting on the ground, her face in her hands. “It’s not my story to tell, Astrophel. I’m sorry; I can’t.”

“You understand that I’m worried about you?” the Ghost asked. 

“You,” she looked up, scanned them, then sighed. “Okay. I can see that now.”

“Is this Calus asking you for things?” Katya asked.

“To get better. Stronger. I can’t see a way he’s doing this to study our methods or to emulate them or anything like that. He seems to want us to be ready to face some enemy that he thinks is coming but I haven’t gotten him to say more than that.”

Shry frowned at the ground, considering. She had to wonder if this Calus still wanted her specifically. A gauntlet designed as a place to train to be stronger sounded ideal. It was when she found herself thinking more of a certain pair of mismatched eyes under a different mohawk that Shry shook herself. “I will be pursuing more information about this Calus,” she said.

“What do you-”

“Not,” Shry emphasized the word. “From you.” Silla snapped her mouth shut. “I can’t trust you right now. I’m going to find out if what you’ve said is true. Then we’ll see.” The Hunter nodded. “Astrophel? She’s all yours.”

Shry stalked away from them; dry panic at the idea of another Cabal invasion rising up to choke her. Isaac manifested on her right. “Stay with me, please,” she almost didn’t hear him.

“What?” 

“Your readings are tracking towards losing yourself.”

She swayed where she stood, feeling brittle and cold. “Okay. Talk to me?”

Isaac told her what he knew about her work as a Cryptarch and asked her to clarify some things for him and they passed the time that way. Every time she started to slip, Isaac asked her a question complex enough to force her to stay present. By the time Katya and Astrophel joined them, she felt more steady. 

“You okay, Astrophel?” she asked gently. 

“I’ve had better days,” he sighed. “I’m afraid it gets worse.”

“How so?” Isaac asked.

“Sloane has a job she only trusts me to get done and it’s time sensitive,” Katya explained, watching Shry. 

“How is that worse?” Shry asked, confused.

“We’d prefer not to leave you,” Astrophel explained. “And Sloane’s got it in her head that this is a one Guardian job.”

Shry blinked repeatedly, feeling less dry. She swallowed. “I think I can manage the duration of one mission.”

“With full opsec,” Katya sighed. 

“Perhaps we will take the opportunity to rune a few errands and keep busy,” Isaac offered. 

“Sounds good,” Shry agreed immediately.

“And Silla?” Isaac turned to Astrophel.

The Ghost turned from side to side as a human might shake their head. “I don’t know what to think. I knew she was getting more independent. I expected the Hunter-ness to show up eventually. This has been going on for so long, however, that I’m wondering what else I might have missed. I can’t begin to guess how much Vynn and Bluejay have or haven’t known.”

“You think she kept it from them as well?”

“Don’t know. She got a call from her secondary fireteam and left to take care of that. She’s definitely got something else going on but she’s not willing to talk about it. Kept up with the “it’s not mine to tell” defense.”

Shry sighed and almost chuckled. “Hunters. At least she’s sticking with her team.”

“Hooray,” Katya said in a voice so lacking in enthusiasm that Shry shot her a look. “She’s just at a year old,” she explained. “Do you remember how little trouble we caused in our first year? And she’s gone off and done this “Shadow” business?”

“We knew she would excel,” Shry reminded her. “And we encouraged independent thinking and problem solving.”

Astrophel sighed. “I hope she really is sticking with her team. If she-”

Shry held out a hand and Astrophel floated into it so she could hug him. “Get your mission done and then talk with her again, yeah?”

“No running off and doing something stupid without checking in with Failsafe, Rasputin, and Eris or Ana,” Katya said, ticking off the names on her fingers.

“How about a routine resource collection run in the Tangled Shore?” Isaac suggested. “Failsafe and Rasputin are both interested in Bismuth at the moment.”

“Sounds reasonable. Have a back up plan for the Shry Effect,” Astrophel decided. 

“The what now?” Shry asked, humor in her voice.

“The Shry Effect. It’s when you get involved and things go bonkers.”

Shry rested a hand over her chest. “I’m offended. Bonkers? Bonkers! That’s what you think happens? Things go batshit around me at the very least.”

“Of course, my mistake,” Astrophel responded, laughing. “I’ll make a note. We do have to get going though.”

“Have fun. Let Sloane know what you think of her one-Guardian missions at some point,” Shry waved a little. 

“Oh, I will,” Katya drawled. Then she surprised Shry by sweeping her into a hug. “I’ll make it quick.”

Blinking back the damp in her eyes, Shry managed a grin. “Oh, awesome. Let me know how the timing works out against the last time you said that.”

“We will work at staying safe,” Isaac offered. Katya nodded to him and they transmatted out. He turned back to Shry. “Would you prefer to simply return to Mars?”

“No,” she said immediately. “Let’s get something done. I think that will feel good.”

“As you wish,” he said, voice warm enough, that she suddenly thought the trip might not feel as long as she had anticipated.


	16. The Shry Effect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags and don't fret too much.

When they transmatted down to the surface of the asteroid he had chosen, Shry nearly fell flat on her face from the change in gravity and Isaac had to restrain a laugh. He was already entirely too pleased with himself over how loose and relaxed she was. They spent several enjoyable hours moving between deposits and teasing each other. Then a large caliber kinetic bullet hit the wall barely to the side of Shry’s head and she ducked, already running for cover. “What can you give me?” 

“Sniper. Nothing else as yet. High likelihood of Scorn. Most of the Fallen here do not typically engage in violence against Guardians.”

“Scorn are the reborn Fallen?” she turned around a large boulder and took a moment to breathe.

“Yes.”

“Lovely,” she muttered, leaning out from behind the boulder briefly only to duck back with a curse as another bullet impacted the dust. “You get that?”

Isaac had already run the flashback from the scope against his records and scans of the area. “Location marked, but given their readiness for the second shot they must already be moving again. Meaning this location is compromised.”

Shry bolted, weaving between boulders and rocks. Isaac detected a rush of movement to one side and he felt the moment that Shry heard his concern through their empathic connection. She dove, rolling behind a smaller boulder even as a bullet impacted where her head should have been. She rocketed into Stormtrance with a speed that surprised him and used Ionic Blink to cross the open space to a rocky outcropping that would give them greater cover. She dismissed the Stormtrance in an instant and ran for a cave system.

“Shry?” 

“Hm?”

“You are not pursuing them?”

“Not out in the open like that; maybe down in a tunnel system if I can get terrain advantage. The problem with snipers is that they can kill Ghosts.”

“Shall we go?” 

“Nah. We still need to get materials. I’m just taking some precautions.” Shry wound through the tunnel system, continuing to make progress toward the coordinates Isaac had found for a bismuth deposit. Even so, they were soon on the run again. They managed to stay ahead of the sniper but Shry took a bullet to the shoulder that Isaac refused to let wait.

“You seem cheerful,” he noted as he manifested to heal it.

“A routine mission went wrong. Oh no. How terrible,” she said at her most dry. “Nothing going wrong on a mission is when I start to worry. Damn. Astrophel was right with the whole Shry Effect thing.”

A shot echoed through the caves and Isaac’s world spun round and round. Confused, he reached out for Shry and found her in a state of hyperfocus to cover the rage which covered her panic. “What?” he asked inelegantly.

“They’re not after me,” she growled. He knew they were moving but he couldn’t quite orient. “They shot you. No way they were aiming at me for that shot.”

“But-” a shudder ran through him and his interface ran a long list of error codes from both his shell and his primary processing protocols. Was this what life was like for Bluejay? How abysmal. “Shry, I-”

“You have to go,” Shry whispered, ducking around a corner.

“Absolutely not,” Isaac snapped, just managing to focus on her.

“Listen to me and think, please,” Shry’s voice was confident in a way he hadn’t heard before. “I’m not being stupid. I have a plan.”

“Tell me.”

“Leave, get out of here. Get somewhere safe. Transmat back to the ship. I’ll lead this idiot on a merry chase and see if I can’t get this mess further away from the landing zone. If I manage to kill him you can come back immediately. If he wins, you go get help. You do not come back in here alone, you hear me?”

“Come with me,” he said immediately. Another shudder ran through him and his last word flanged badly.

“I am not going to leave a Ghost hunter standing if I can help it but you have to be safe.”

“Shry,” Isaac’s voice trembled. 

She turned and took seconds she didn’t have to rip off her helmet, wrap her hand around his shell, and to kiss him. She lifted him level with her eyes. “I love you.”

Isaac swelled and shattered at once. Desperately, he wished she had chosen any other moment to say those words. Desperately, he knew he’d have done the same in her place. Desperately, he reset her loadout with the most vicious gear he could think of. “I love you too.”

Smiling at him, she gently pushed him away and shot herself in the foot with Riskrunner to get Arc Conductor going. He healed her foot even as she ran back around the corner, taunting the Scorn as she sprinted away. 

Feeling as though he could implode, Isaac transmatted away and onto their ship. Skipping preflight so as not to inflict his errors on the onboard computer, Isaac directed the ship into orbit and once there he fully focused on his empathic link with Shry.

He was deeply relieved to find her as yet unharmed, still taunting the sniper further away from the Shore’s landing zone. She worked hard to stay far enough ahead that she could find cover in places with multiple routes. She’d grabbed a pocketful of pebbles at some point and she would toss pebbles to create directional confusion for the sniper. More than once she found a way to double back and get behind the sniper but never without alerting them. It went on like that for hours.

After the first hour, Isaac realized that Shry’s fury had not died down at all but rather had banked into something that seemed dangerously like how she sometimes felt to him during one of her… moments. This time, however, she was fully focused and aware of her surroundings, possibly even enjoying the challenge. By the end of the second hour Isaac began to realize that he had misassessed Shry’s combat potential. In combat with a Ghost she would throw herself straight into the thick of it and have a good time because it didn’t matter how destructive she was there. In combat without a Ghost her methods were entirely different. She counted her resources carefully, used a much more defensive style, was aware of what each hit was worth. 

Over and over, Ardath had told him in one of their conversations that Shry didn’t value herself, that he didn’t know how Shry got off Io. Clearly he was wrong, and here was proof of how she’d escaped. Shry knew exactly how much of a resource she was to herself, but she considered her Ghost a part of that total and adapted accordingly. Adaptable. This was his Shry. Isaac basked in the quiet contentment of comprehension to distract himself from the errors until the fourth hour.

He felt the surge of frustration from Shry long before he felt the impact of the sniper’s bullet. Isaac nearly fell from the air. When he was in combat with her, there were so many things to focus on. When he was in combat with her, he could heal her the moment she took a hit. Away from her, he began to comprehend what pain was for humans and he did not like what he found.

Shry continued her pattern but she was at once more aggressive and more defensive in her methods. When she pushed, she pushed further. When she bunkered down, it was in much more defensible locations. For the fifth and most of the sixth hour, she did not acquire further injury. Isaac could sense her condition worsen as she continued to lose blood. He observed himself losing some capacity to focus the weaker she got. He had the impression that she had done something to slow the bleeding but clearly it was not sufficient. Slowing the bleeding would never be sufficient.

A series of particularly vicious errors shook his core and he came back to awareness with Shry pushing concern at him even as she was in the thick of it. He pushed what reassurances he could to her, hoping she would refocus. Idly, he wrote and encrypted a message for Bluejay. _How do you deal with all these errors? This is atrocious. I will bring you more servers when next we meet._ After scanning it for errors from his current difficulties, he sent it through the ship’s comms. Then, at the end of the sixth hour she took two hits in rapid succession. 

Agony tore through him faster than he could prepare for. By the time he could filter past the pain, the errors, his own panic he found his shell entirely on the floor. Decided that leaving it there was the better part of valor he returned his focus to his connection to Shry. 

Either their connection had grown or their mutual weakness was improving their bond. Shry’s entire goal had shifted to making the sniper’s life hell. She knew she was defeated. One wing, two body shots. She was losing too fast to come back at this point. She had laid a number of traps in different tunnels, and now she circled back to get behind the sniper again with the intent to at least put a few more rounds in them. 

She paused to listen and took a moment to press reassurance and love toward - into! - Isaac. He surged along their connection and pressed his own love and admiration and pride into their shared space and for the first time he heard words within their bond:

_I love you. Stay safe._

Shry pushed herself off the wall and sprinted, her body weeping blood with every movement. She made it into close range with the sniper. Scorn, too small to be the Baron, her thoughts echoed through Isaac’s mind. Through her eyes he watched Riskrunner fire into the sniper and felt Shry pull from the Attunement of the Elements to pulse a bolt of Arc energy into the sniper’s face. He felt the moment the close range sniper shot went through her and then-

Nothing.

Abhorrent. Loathsome. Wretched.

After finally, suddenly managing such a complete bond with her only to have her immediately stripped away from him was the single most heinous thing Isaac had ever experienced. It took several tries to get his servos restarted. He hovered to the comms board and landed there. Everything in him screamed that he should find her, that he had to get to her immediately. He rocked slightly against the comms board to remind himself how limited he now was. How he’d failed. He couldn’t afford to fail again. Not when-

The comms board flickered. “Isaac?” Shry’s voice sent joy lancing through him. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said immediately. “What-”

“It felt like you shorted out again,” she breathed heavily.

“The Scorn-”

“Dead. Uploading coordinates because reading is hard right now.”

As soon as he had her coordinates he threw himself into transmat and to her side, already shedding Light when he arrived. How she was still breathing, he wasn’t certain. He managed to heal most of the internal damage before another error shuddered through him. When he came to, she had him in her hands and her helmet on the floor, worry clear in her face.

“Take a minute,” she insisted as his servos began to restart. “Then we’ll go straight to the ship and see who knows how to help.”

“Poor Bluejay,” he murmured.

Her face tightened. “I know, love,” she cradled him against her chest.

“Love,” he agreed happily, leaning into her. After a few moments he felt a bit better. “I can transmat us safely now.”

“Okay,” she snagged her helmet and her gun. “Let’s go.” He took them to the ship and she gently nestled him on one of the blankets as she stripped out of her armor and dumped it in the scrubber. “Let’s get this off you,” she breathed, her hands steady as she carried him to the worktop where she’d set out his old shell. 

Her hands were efficient and gentle as she stripped off the ruined shell and opened the new one for him to settle into. It was much easier to move without the damaged plates jamming against each other and he flew to her chest and pressed gently against her before turning to survey the damage. 

The shell was misshapen, even on the side that hadn’t taken the bullet, Ardath’s systems having redistributed the force across the entire side. The plates around the eye frame had swollen and restricted his sensory systems in exchange for further protecting the vulnerable point. The side that had taken the hit was warped around a hole the size and shape of a high caliber kinetic bullet, with appropriate shredding in its wake and around the exit point. Shry tapped away at one of the consoles and pulled up an image of his core with a fine gouge scraped out of it. 

She took a deep breath and finally her hands began to shake. “Isaac,” her voice cracked and jumped octaves. 

He turned and flooded her with as much of his Light as he dared expend at the moment. “I’m here,” he said. “You kept us safe. I am here.” She sank to her knees around him, sobbing, and he slowly bent his Light into her until their minds slipped together again. They grieved the close call together, experienced the relief together. She drew him to her forehead and breathed. 

“Surely there’s someone who knows how to repair that sort of thing,” she said.

“If there is, I haven’t heard of them,” he admitted.

“Well fuck that,” she muttered and he laughed. “Let’s go see if Jinju will let us run scans on her core.”

The comms board pinged. “Or Astrophel,” Isaac added, making a guess at the sender. 

“Let’s see,” she agreed, pulling herself into the pilot’s chair and grabbing a blanket to make a nest for him. Even with all their troubles, he was quite sure he had never felt so content before.


	17. Regrets

“Hey Astrophel,” Shry’s voice came across the comms, exhausted. 

Astrophel shared a glance with Katya before responding. “Hello yourself. Isaac usually answers this line. Everything okay?”

“The Shry Effect is real,” she huffed. “He’s exhausted.”

“Hello,” Isaac’s voice was muffled and distant but there nonetheless. 

“What happened?” he dared to ask.

“What do I even- How- Field testing, do you think?” Shry asked.

“You could just say it directly,” Isaac answered, still muffled.

“Please,” Astrophel added.

“We got to see the shell improvements in action,” Shry said. “They worked and we’re very grateful. And uh. Would you mind very much if we scanned your core? Need to figure out what it’s made of so we can repair a scratch.”

Astrophel felt ready to explode and he quickly threw text to that effect on Katya’s console as he bolted across the ship to the far side. He listened as Katya switched on the open comms.

“He’s… reacting to that. He’ll need a minute. I’m sure he’ll let you scan his core? Yeah, he nodded so he’s at least that okay. You need anything else?” she asked, eyeing him. He shook himself and she turned back to the mic. “Okay. Isaac, anything other than the scratch?”

“Occasional errors. Much rarer without the damaged shell.”

“So a bit more complicated than just resurfacing.”

“Likely so.”

“Shry?”

“He got me mostly patched up before he had to stop. I’m fine.”

“And?”

“Trying my best?” the woman sounded exhausted. “I think I got most of the panic out of my system earlier and the Scorn was a great outlet for the rage.”

“Shall I see if Ana’s available?” Katya offered. “You two should get some rest. We can come meet you and if you’re functional, great, you can fly. If not, we can yoke you up and get you anywhere.”

“Please,” Shry agreed immediately. “That sounds wonderful. Thank you.”

“See you soon,” Katya said. “I’ll leave the comms open if you need to talk. Gonna shut off the mic to check on Astrophel.”

“Hugs from me,” Shry called as Katya stood.

Astrophel turned to watch as Katya crossed the ship to his side. “You, uh. Want me to try and give you a Shry hug?” Katya offered. He pressed himself immediately against her chest plate and her arms came up so that her hands cupped him the way that Shry would. “They’re okay,” she said quietly.

“I don’t know what I would do if we lost him too,” he admitted, his voice sounding wrecked even to him. “I don’t know if we could help her.”

“I don’t think we could,” Katya agreed. She carried him with her and sat on the cot. “I want to ask you something and I’ve been putting it off but now seems like a good time.”

“What could possibly be good now?” he asked, curious despite his fear and grief.

“I’ve been considering asking them to form a fireteam with us. Would you be okay with that?”

Astrophel was shocked into silence for a moment and he was only able to break it by spluttering. It took several beats of that before he regained his own coherence. “Of course I’m okay with that! I love that idea. I am so sorry I forgot how to speak, how did I-”

“Lots of big emotions,” she noted, still surprisingly soft with him. “I know you like having people around but asking them is a risk. They may turn us down. They’re not used to teaming up, you know? They’ve both protected her independence.”

“But they let us help,” he countered. “They came to us and they let us stay when the job was done. Isaac keeps coming to us,” his voice broke and flanged with his emotions. “Shry likes us. You know she does.”

“That’s part of this,” she said quietly enough that Astrophel found himself waiting for her to continue. “He told me once that I’m the only one she allows to tell her no that she listens to.” 

“That means something to you,” he realized.

Katya nodded. “To me it’s as much of a difference as there is between friend and family,” she said slowly. He wondered if she’d tried to put it into words before. “It’s… it’s being invited to step over and around walls and defenses that keep her safe. It’s trust. She has extended that trust to her Ghosts and to us and to no one else. To ask her to form a fireteam if she doesn’t want it, to make her say no, will break some of that trust.”

“Then we don’t ask,” he said and Katya slumped. Recognizing that he had miscommunicated he went on. “Sorry, I mean… We offer, not ask. We say “Hey, we’d be happy to work like this all the time if that would be good for you two, let us know what you think” and then we leave it alone until they’re ready to talk about it.”

Katya watched him for a long moment before she nodded. “You’re good at people.”

Astrophel preened. “I know.”

“I am grateful, you know,” she said slowly, carefully. “That you stuck with me after… after.”

He stilled, realizing that Isaac’s close call had affected her more than she’d let on. “You’re still you,” he said. “Really, you are. I know it doesn’t always feel like it but your Light has never changed, and neither have the things that are important to you. You might express yourself differently, but people change how they do that naturally over time. You did it all at once, sure. But I knew what was happening and why. It hurt; I lost someone I care about. But I didn’t at the same time. And even if I did, I got you. And I wouldn’t take that choice away from you even if I could.”

She was still a long time before she finally nodded. “Thank you.” Her voice was rough. 

“You’re my Guardian,” he reminded her. “I picked you.”

“So long as you don’t regret it,” she said and his whole world stopped.

“Never!” he cried, darting to be level with her sensory array. “Not once. I swear. When did this start? Why do you think I-”

“Easy,” she said, reaching up a hand to hold him again. “You didn’t give me any reason to think that. I just wonder sometimes.”

“You always have reasons,” he pressed.

“It’s an option, you know, for personalities to clash. We’ve seen it. It happens. And sometimes I wondered if Arthil did.”

Astrophel grumbled wordlessly. “I never have,” he said eventually. “Promise.”

Something in her posture relaxed. “Good. And we’re making improvements to your shell next time we’re on Mars.”

“Duh,” he huffed, affectionately.


	18. Team

In the end, they returned to Mars and used Rasputin’s incredible array of sensory machines to analyze the cores of both Isaac and Astrophel. Once she understood what was happening, Jinju insisted on participating and then began fabrication of a number of the improved shells so that they would each have spares. 

After a great deal of fussing over both of them Ana insisted on helping with the project and even claimed to have sources for the rarest of the elements needed for the repairs if they could just wait long enough for her to get her hands on them. 

Shry personally sat down at their comms board and forwarded the schematics, as well as all of the notes and research they’d done to a number of people. She sent it to Silla and to Vynn, she sent it to Osiris (against Isaac’s wishes), Asher Mir, and in the end she sent it to the Vanguard. Bee responded immediately with questions about making the plates transparent and spherical and Shry found herself laughing for a long time. 

Isaac still had some difficulties so he spent much of his time in Shry’s lap or hands and Shry spent a great deal of her time practicing Rifts. She didn’t use them often as she typically didn’t hold still in combat long enough for them to be practical. But the Light was soothing to Isaac as it had been for Bluejay and so she learned. 

One night the two of them were relaxing in their ship after spending the day clearing out Cabal with Katya. Isaac turned to watch Shry as she pulled her armor from the scrubber and put it away. 

“This is the longest we’ve spent with other people,” he noted. “Do you feel the need for isolation?”

Shry paused, a glove in her hand, as she considered. “I don’t think so,” she decided. “It’s all been people I care about, you know, small doses mostly.”

“I had wondered if Katya and Astrophel being concerned over leaving you had stuck with you as a resentment.” 

“No,” she said slowly. “Just about anyone else it would have, but not them.”

“Do you know why they’re different?” he asked, curious.

“Let me think about it.”

Two days later, Shry was sitting at a window in the Futurescape overlooking the Mindlab when Katya stepped into the room. “May I join you?”

Shry gestured toward the rest of the seating. “No space at all. Might have to make yourself comfortable on the floor.”

“Glad your sense of humor is back to normal,” the EXO noted as she took a chair.

“Are you?” Shry asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Katya said bluntly. 

“Me too,” Shry admitted. 

“Is Isaac around?”

“He’s in my scarf,” Shry grinned.

“Hello,” he said, wiggling enough that he uncovered himself. 

“Nice, hey,” Katya waved a hand in greeting as Astrophel appeared next to her. “We wanted to make the two of you an offer.”

“Okay,” Shry said, bemused, as Isaac extricated himself from the scarf and came to rest in Shry’s lap.

“We are listening,” he agreed.

“Working with you two full-time has been good for us,” Katya began. “We’ve enjoyed it. If that sort of thing is good for you two as well we would be happy to build an actual fireteam with you. Not saying we’re not happy to leave things as they are, cause we are happy to do that. Just. Wanted to put the option on the table. 

Isaac turned to look at Shry and she felt his Light reaching for hers. Their minds slipped together and she took a deep breath. _They’re different because they’ve seen me at my worst and never treated me any different_ , she told him. 

_It is a commitment, not only to work together but to be available to each other. I think our answer is yes, but I accept your answer unconditionally_ , he said.

Shry blinked rapidly and flexed one hand to help bring her awareness back to herself. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

Katya and Astrophel blinked in time and then Astrophel spun in a circle and cheered. Katya smiled, though the expression was stunned. “I didn’t think you’d go for it at all, let alone immediately,” she admitted. 

“You’ve never tried to change me in a way I didn’t want to change,” Shry said slowly, still putting words to her feelings. “Never wanted me to trust people I didn’t want to trust.”

The EXO nodded slowly. “I’m glad. I don’t want to do those things.”

“That too,” Shry tilted her head in acknowledgement, and then smiled. “I have no idea how to fireteam.”

“Oh, I’ve already assumed the traditional methods won’t work,” Astrophel said, gleeful. “Based on the last few patrols, I think the only thing we need to work on is communication and familiarity and we’ll be fine.”

“Agreed,” Isaac said. 

“Okay,” Shry said slowly, wondering at the turns her life at taken. “Team it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well! We got through the emotionally rough part of the series!!! =D
> 
> What, Ardath? Oh. Right. Well. Good thing there will be more.


End file.
